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Eug · Sep 4, 2007, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by *TL

I'll be interested to see how this does with it's $200 price tag. Between this and the premium prices for The Sopranos 6.1 & 6.2, Lost, and Heroes, I'm starting to think that TV on HD disc might be a non-starter.

The Star Trek box set is actually $125 for those of us with the Amazon HD promotion, and $138.95 for everyone else. Even $125 is still a little steep, but it's less than 2/3rds the MSRP.

P.S. Heroes was $59.46, or in my case $65.44 because it's about $6 extra for shipping to Canada.

icruise · Sep 4, 2007, 01:54 PM

Star Trek on DVD has always been overpriced (I own almost all of seasons of all the shows) so I wouldn't expect HD-DVD to be any different. But to be honest, I'm not that interested in this release. It's not even the original show, strictly speaking, since some of the effects had to be redone. I haven't seen it, but it seems to me that the cheesiness of a lot of that stuff was part of what made it charming, and I would guess that they have made it look "better" than the original.

Dakarʒ · Sep 4, 2007, 01:55 PM

I didn't mind the redone effects when I saw them on tv. They're not overly superfluous, unlike Star Wars.

starman · Sep 4, 2007, 02:00 PM

The effects are very, VERY good. I'm an old school Trekkie, I used to watch it on NBC, I own several episodes on 16mm, I'm a HUGE fan. If the effects sucked, I'd be the first to say it.

The EARLY redone effects aren't so hot. They made some amazing changes over the last few months, but they didn't go back and fix them for the HD-DVD release. Stupid.

jokell82 · Sep 4, 2007, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

The Star Trek box set is actually $125 for those of us with the Amazon HD promotion, and $138.95 for everyone else. Even $125 is still a little steep, but it's less than 2/3rds the MSRP.

P.S. Heroes was $59.46, or in my case $65.44 because it's about $6 extra for shipping to Canada.

Yeah I didn't think the price of Heroes was out of line - I paid $65 with expedited shipping from Amazon. Considering the price of TV shows when DVD was still new, I consider $65 to be a bargain.

Eug · Sep 4, 2007, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by starman

The effects are very, VERY good. I'm an old school Trekkie, I used to watch it on NBC, I own several episodes on 16mm, I'm a HUGE fan. If the effects sucked, I'd be the first to say it.

The EARLY redone effects aren't so hot. They made some amazing changes over the last few months, but they didn't go back and fix them for the HD-DVD release. Stupid.

OK, watching the blinking Gorn eyes made me giddy, but what do you mean "early" (vs. late) redone effects?

Do you have a screengrab link somewhere?

Either way, I think I'll be buying it. I bought a few episodes of the original DVD, but back then it cost way too much to buy them all. When the box set came out again, I held off... for hi-def. So, now is the time to buy... redone effects or not. I just hope they aren't too CG looking. At least it's supposedly nowhere as hokey as the Star Wars updated effects.

What I'd really like is an option for either/or for the effects, selectable during playback. This is possible with the hi-def formats, but I'm guessing the reason they didn't do it is because:

1) It'd be even more work.
2) They didn't clean up the transfers from the old effects.

starman · Sep 4, 2007, 10:27 PM

Trek Movie Report | Star Trek XI news, rumors, info and downloads should have the differences. Early on, the starfields and E weren't so good. They improved with time.

Brien · Sep 4, 2007, 10:34 PM

IIRC, the old effects looked terrible in HD, or couldn't be remastered in HD, or something to that effect.

Eug · Sep 4, 2007, 10:38 PM

Meh. Some of the CG is good, some is OK, and some of it just looks like they changed things for no good reason.

I really dislike the fact that the rear view on Squire of Gothos now has the back parts of the ship in the way. I am also disappointed by the new tricoder screen. It's lost some of its charm.

Brien · Sep 4, 2007, 11:09 PM

Wow, that second link with the tricoder... it's a step in the wrong direction IMO. Old ones had better art direction.

The other thing I don't like is the effects are pretty cheap. :/

- - e r i k - - · Sep 4, 2007, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Meh. Some of the CG is good, some is OK, and some of it just looks like they changed things for no good reason.

I really dislike the fact that the rear view on Squire of Gothos now has the back parts of the ship in the way. I am also disappointed by the new tricoder screen. It's lost some of its charm.

Well, that's what the rear view would look like now wouldn't it?

Anyway, I'd be more ticked off at how crappy that ship looks in cheap 3D compared to the old model.

Eug · Sep 4, 2007, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

Well, that's what the rear view would look like now wouldn't it?

Only if it were a wide angle view. There's nothing there that says it's a wide angle view.

ie. They're overinterpreting it, just for the sake of it.

Brien · Sep 5, 2007, 01:21 AM

Possibly. *shrugs*

Dunno why they didn't do a shot-for-shot redo.

- - e r i k - - · Sep 5, 2007, 02:18 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

Only if it were a wide angle view. There's nothing there that says it's a wide angle view.

I can't believe I'm discussing Trekkie-Science, but…

What? At that distance (what is it? miles?) it's obvious that you'd see the back thingamajiggas. There's nothing there that says it's a telescopic view.

If it was just a regular window then of course you'd expect to see them. Much like you would see the planks hanging out over your car rear window.

Dakarʒ · Sep 5, 2007, 07:26 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

Meh. Some of the CG is good, some is OK, and some of it just looks like they changed things for no good reason.

I really dislike the fact that the rear view on Squire of Gothos now has the back parts of the ship in the way. I am also disappointed by the new tricoder screen. It's lost some of its charm.

God, I don't remember the ship looking that bad when I watched it on TV. And why the hell are the new screens so much dimmer than the old ones?

Chongo · Sep 5, 2007, 08:38 PM

Sorry been out of town. The banned one ask for a list and I was at work and I did a quick search and found the Wiki article. It stated "Japanese" firsts and not world firsts. When I tried "Toshiba format fails" in Google it brought up links to the failed attempt to unify the new HD disk format.

As an FYI I am going to wait and buy The new Samsung BD-UP5000. ($540/€400)

jokell82 · Sep 5, 2007, 08:49 PM

The unified HD disk? You mean the Warner TotalHD disc? That's not a Toshiba thing...

Brien · Sep 5, 2007, 08:52 PM

No, he's referring to back before either was on the